fundamental belief, the universal distinctions of language, and the common consciousness of mankind. To avowed materialists, who assume that mind itself is material, this issue must be utterly irrelevant and impossible. The issue with them is upon entirely another ground. Science itself is impossible, where mind is ruled out as material; for matter can know nothing, a fortiori it cannot construct science.

But to advance to the narrowest field of science, that of sense, the experiential, we affirm that those who confine themselves within this narrow field are by self-limitation excluded from this discussion. The problem does not, at least, lie within that field. The issue is not a phenomenon, for the eye or ear or touch to decide. If there is no science but this possible, as some scientists pretend, then the problem is ruled out forever, and the issue must be pronounced nugatory. But the issue does not await the permission of positivism. It spurns such scientific impertinence. Ruled out forever as nugatory and impossible, it returns with ten thousand thousand voices to assert its real presence, and confront and contradict the partial ruling. If this restricted tribunal is incompetent to do it justice and secure its rights, it is but a confession of the incompetency of positivism. There is an appeal to a court of larger jurisdiction and higher competency. We make no special plea against the modern school of science. We point to the confession as conclusive proof of weakness. Within its own field it is doing industrious and legitimate service to religion and progress. But it is not comprehensive, therefore it must not be exclusive. It may be positive in regard to its knowledge; it should be positive, also, in regard to its ignorance. On other and essential grounds we have already shown its fatal defect. Its confession here confirms our criticism. The issue is not only between religion and partial science, but also between partial science and true philosophy.

We repeat, the real issue remains. It will not down at the bidding of positive science. It has the life of humanity, and the vigor of faith reappearing in every form of religion

since the world began. Shall mind be secondary and subordinate to matter? Or is mind itself superior and primarythe source of all that is, and the sovereign? We say to positivism, as we say to every sense-theory, it is incompetent to assert; it is incompetent to deny. All it can say is, that there are antecedents and sequents, phenomena succeeding phenomena; but it cannot affirm, it certainly cannot deny, that there is anything abiding. Hence we dismiss objections from any such quarter as unauthorized and groundless. But there is a larger field of science-the field of the understanding, where true logic has its legitimate sphere, and conclusions may be valid, e.g. that there cannot be phenomena without something to appear, nor effects without something to produce them. And so Mr. Tyndall admits that all phenomena have a causative source in the potency of matter; although he does not tell us what matter is, nor whence or what is its potency. Till these questions be answered, he has thrown but a dim and unsatisfactory light upon the problem. Yet Tyndall disclaims atheism-a disclaimer certainly significant in regard to the real question at issue.

Mr. Spencer, with greater boldness, tells us that force is the ground of all phenomena, and that force is unknowable. This is the farthest analysis of " modern thought."

And this is proposed as the common ground of reconciliation between science and religion. Is science, whose very office is to know, -is science satisfied with this proposed reconciliation, in the unknowable? Can it consent to a postulate which is suicidal-an ultimate which would swallow up every scientific labor and success in fathomless nescience?

Can religion accept this theory as sufficient to satisfy the longing of the human soul-a longing not only to rely upon, but to trust in and commune with, the Eternal Being, not only to fear, but to worship and love, the Eternal? In this final question, important above all others, does ratiocination repudiate or confirm faith? Does reason still accompany and support religion? Can science give us any knowledge of force which will help decide the case? In our own consciousness does

force appear as the offspring of mind, the result of will-power, and not vice versa? Is not Mr. Spencer's notion of force derived from mind? 66 Force, as known to us, is an affection of consciousness."1 "The force by which we ourselves produce changes serves to symbolize the cause of changes in general, and is the final disclosure of analysis."2 Is, then, his final analysis final, when he postulates force as ultimate? Or does it look directly beyond, to the will-power or personality which exerts that force? Is not his final analysis, then, really an indication and admission of a personal First Cause as Author of force, and thus Creator of the universe? Religion does not discard the reconciliation proposed by Mr. Spencer, because it is too scientific, but because it is too little scientific. Religion admits the right of science to go. thus far, whether Mr. Spencer's system would authorize it to do so or not. But religion denies the right to go thus far, and then stop at this point.

Faith raises the same question in behalf of religion which reason asks in behalf of science: Why stop with force as the ground of all phenomena, when force itself is phenomenal as meeting and resisting the senses, e.g. in hearing, touch, etc.? Why stop with force, when force itself, according to our consciousness, testifies of will as its source? Why call it unknown, when in the same breath it is declared known, as having persistence and power and causality, etc. — attributes which belong to personality? Why call it unintelligent, when confessedly its doings are the most intelligent (according to "modern thought ") in the universe; comprehending, indeed, by the theory, all the intelligence in the universe? Why call it unconscious, when it manifests not only the highest intelligence, but the highest wisdom in the adaptation of means to ends, in relating causes to effects, in harmonizing forces and phenomena throughout the universe? so that science itself asserts the universal order; and science and religion agree in tracing all phenomena and all effects to one ultimate cause. Why call this ultimate and eternal cause force, 2 Ibid. p. 235.

1 First Principles, p. 58.

-blind, unconscious, unintelligent force,-and thus exclude God from the universe, and deny his existence, when “modern thought" itself involuntarily admits that such effects as have been produced demand the highest type of causation? Why call it unknown, when in the same breath it is declared persistent, and so known as enduring? when it is declared "the ultimate of ultimates," and so known as the ground of all appearances," the cause of all phenomena," the ultimate or first cause? If science can know so much about this 66 knowable" as to clothe it with attributes of personality, why not frankly admit, as some of the most candid and able scientific thinkers affirm, and as faith will admit and our consciousness asserts, that force is the product of will-power, and so the primal or ultimate force is the product of an eternal, almighty, intelligent, and wise will - the infinite and holy will of a personal God?

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This may be common ground for science and religion. Thus is the First Cause not only ultimate, but adequate to the production of mental, as well as material, phenomena adequate, which according to Mr. Spencer's theory it confessedly is not. Thus all things centre harmoniously in God. Mind as a free, personal activity is his offspring; and force, though unseen, is his material creation—the product of his will the ground of all material phenomena. So that, in the higher light of rational science, as well as in the clear vision of faith, God appears as the Author of all things, and reason confirms the affirmation of faith, that "The worlds were framed by the word of God; so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear."

Thus both by the authority of reason and of faith is the universe wrested from the false and fearful dominion of fate, and the capricious and still more fearful dominion of chance. Moral government is restored to the world. Not only power, but wisdom and goodness belong unto God. Henceforth, forever, science, as well as religion, may rest by faith in God. He is our dwelling-place in all generations; the universe is

1 See Tyndall's Address.

secure under his almighty and everlasting and holy government. Neither necessity nor chance shall wreck or crush it. The field of science securely opens into the alluring and widening future. Newton was, indeed, as a child gathering pebbles on the shore of the boundless ocean of knowledge. Bacon was but the trumpeter to sound the inspiring call in the triumphant march of thought; while faith surveys the expanding fields of science and the bright and interminable field of religion, and with rapture recalls the promise of God: "All are yours."

Here we find the clue to a true theory of evolution, which runs throughout all material nature, and inductively and securely leads us back to force, and up to God as the Creator of force and the Author of nature—an evolution originated by a divine mind, controlled by divine power, guided by divine wisdom, and consummated by divine benevolence.

On the other hand, this clue saves us from wandering in the endless mazes of the false theory of evolution presented by "modern thought," based upon the false theory of force as ultimate. Besides this fundamental defect, this theory of evolution declares force to be absolute, yet becoming conditioned; to be homogeneous, yet becoming heterogeneous the one evolving into the many, not only, and the multifarious, but into the contradictory and superior, in endless succession. How, we ask, can evolution start with the homogeneous,force, and force only, without spontaneity or will? How, then, can the homogeneous become unstable and heterogeneous, and force become forces? It is impossible, according to the system; and evolution cannot begin. It is only by an illicit process that Spencer's system can change the homogeneous into the heterogeneous - by surreptitiously introducing motion. If force is first, and at first is all, how is it that it evolves so as to produce consciousness and selfconsciousness; so as to produce knowledge, knowledge of itself, and knowledge of all things, amounting even to omniscience?

By Spencer's "positive" legerdemain not only does his